


hear this now

by littleleotas



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, The Princess Bride References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 05:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12125502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleleotas/pseuds/littleleotas
Summary: Shepard realises what Garrus means when he says, "I'm right behind you."





	hear this now

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the absolutely wonderful angelikitten for this fantastic prompt, and to everyone whose advice helped this come into being - [princess peach voice] you're all superstars!

Shepard learned very young to look behind the words people say. It bothered her that she _had_ to, that people wouldn’t just say what they mean, but she also relished the challenge; it was a puzzle to be solved – machinery missing a cog, and she had to fit the right one in. It was almost like code-breaking, and finding the cipher that revealed the message was thrilling.

The trick, though, was knowing when this was the case. In dealing with her superiors in the Alliance, the Council, politicians, she always knew to be looking for what people meant rather than what they said. In other situations, she expected people to be as straight-forward as she was. With a puzzle in front of her, she was adept at solving it, but if she didn’t know it was a puzzle, she was completely oblivious.

She didn’t see the way Garrus looked at her as she told the Council they’d regret not listening to her. The awe of her bravery, the adoration of her conviction, the respect for her patience – it was more, even then, than pride in his commanding officer, but that was what she saw, and that was what she accepted. She didn’t see the way, behind his helmet, he stared at what appeared to be a ghost racing across Omega toward him. She saw relief in the gaze of an old friend she came to rescue, as he looked at his heart, long since taken from him, now standing in front of him.

It wasn’t until they reunited on Menae that she realised.

“I’m right behind you,” he had said, as she left the council chamber dejected and downcast. “I’m right behind you,” he had said, as she turned to face down the mercenaries outnumbering them 20 to 1. “I’m right behind you,” every time she asked him to follow her into battle, every fight, from small bands of geth to a monstrous human Reaper embryo.

She had hardly slept since being freed from house arrest, and what sleep she’d had was fitful and nightmarish. The last she heard from Garrus, he had been on Palaven. Hearing the Reapers had attacked drained the colour from her vision. She felt something pulling her down through the floor with every step. More tired, more lonely, more afraid than she had ever been in her life – and out of nowhere he appeared, and if he’d asked her, she could’ve flown.

As ever, there was no time for lengthy reunions, no time for the thousand things she wanted to say, no time for the thousand “I love you’s” she had stored up. She was immediately tasked with finding the new Primarch, and almost absentmindedly, she turned to Garrus while reloading her gun.

“Are you coming, Garrus?”

“Are you kidding? I’m right behind you.”

Shepard met his gaze, understanding for the first time. It was like she had read a poem over and over, understanding the words, but not comprehending the idea – like art, which has no meaning, only feeling. She had understood, or she had thought she’d understood, but the words had only made sense before. Now there was something else, something _more_ than sense there, too; it was a distinction she had never before seen, the difference between what makes sense and what is real.

What made sense was that he was her best friend, her most trusted companion, her most dependable soldier, providing constant reassurance that he had her back, that he was there for her, that he would protect her.

What was real was that when he said, “I’m right behind you,” what he meant was, “I love you.”

“I love you, and I am with you when no one else is.”

“I love you, and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“I love you, and I would follow you to the end of the world if you asked.”

Every time she solved a puzzle, her heart leapt into her throat, pushed up by a surge of excitement. This time was somehow no different and entirely different at the same time; she lacked the clarity that usually came with that excitement, but what it was clouded with was a sense of warmth. She was so full of joy her skin felt stretched, and she wasn’t sure how she wasn’t exploding. But at the same time it was – calming, somehow. Like the moment after taking a fall, and realising you’ve landed comfortably in a soft safety net: like laughing uncontrollably after something causing anxiety is resolved: the certainty that everything was okay, and everything would be okay, made her feel at peace for the first time in recent memory.

Timing never was on their side – though in wartime, when is it on anyone’s side? – and oh, how badly she wished she had realised this before, or at the very least, not when they were on a mission on a besieged battlefield. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, understanding plain on both their faces. A meteorite slammed into the ground behind them, knocking them down, and they scrambled to their feet, quickly turning and opening fire on the sprinting husks. But war, as they would find out, cannot stop true love; all it can do is delay it for a while. The story neither begins here nor ends. The important fact is this: Shepard would never doubt again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr at avelakjar if you want to come say hi!


End file.
